Tech football makes its return after first spring practice is officially in the books

Mar 01, 2014

By Dylan Vazzano, TTU Sports Information
Coordinator

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. – The Tennessee Tech football team
kicked off its spring practice schedule on Saturday, going through
the first of 15 practice sessions amidst an overcast day at Tucker
Stadium.

“This is what it’s all about, it’s fun to be
out here again,” head coach Watson Brown said on opening up
spring ball. “I think everybody was excited to get out here
and I think all the players were excited to get away from coach
[Casey] Kramer and that strength and conditioning center, and start
playing a little football.”

The Golden Eagles participated in a number of drills throughout
the afternoon, spending most of the time with their respective
position coaches to develop each player’s understanding of
the system and their skill sets. Before practice was over, the
offensive and defensive units lined up against each other to help
mimic game situations.

The first practice session was aimed to help address three key
aspects throughout the spring, which according to Brown, are
toughness, each player’s understanding of the system and
skills, and team unity.

“We want to address toughness, we were a young team this
past fall and we have to get tougher,” Brown claimed after
the first spring practice was in the books. “Toughness will
come as we go through spring practice.

“The second piece is finding the right guys to play and
setting the systems around them. We want to find the best 22 we
have and then the best 44 we have and go from there. The third
thing to me is that we want to leave here with a little more team
unity. I want our players to understand more of what we are doing
philosophically and how we want them to perform on the
field.”

The spring roster will feature two new names, with the addition
of offensive junior Blake Luevano and freshman Johnathan Coleman.
Luevano is a 6-foot-6, 300-pound offensive lineman from Citrus
(Calif.) College, while Coleman is a 6-foot-2, 210-pound inside
linebacker from Delray Beach, Fla. Both were included in the team's
February signing class and are already enrolled at Tech and
attending classes.

There will also be 13 players in action who sat out the 2013
season as redshirts, all looking to make an impression and solidify
a spot on the preseason depth chart heading into fall camp.

“The players that redshirted last year, you could tell
that they don’t know the stuff as well as the ones who were
out here 12 times in the heat of battle last fall,” Brown
said on some of the new faces out there, including at the
quarterback position, which the Tech head coach addressed.
“The quarterback battle is very important to us and
that’s not going to be settled through tomorrow, but I would
really like it to be done when spring practice is over. I saw some
great things out of all of them but I saw some inconstancy with
them all as well.”

The Golden Eagles will go through 15 spring practice sessions,
weather permitting, with the team getting into Tucker Stadium
Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons at 3 p.m. and Saturdays at
1:30 p.m.

NCAA Division I football programs are permitted to conduct 15
practices during the off-season. The 15 practices must be held
during a period of 34-continuous calendar days. The first three
practices of the spring are non-contact with players wearing
helmets and shorts.

All practices are open to the public and the Golden Eagles
encourage any and all fans to come out and get an early glimpse at
the 2014 squad.